


Love in the time of ---

by hotshoe_again



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, s4 never happened, the baby wasn't real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotshoe_again/pseuds/hotshoe_again
Summary: Warning: this story, like any story set in a time of pandemic, deals with themes of illness and death. (Not death of John or Sherlock, however.)Please be aware of your limits for depressing news and find other things to read to be optimistic.The title is, of course, homage to the great novel Love in the Time of Cholera by  Gabriel García Márquez, a classic of magical realism and lovesickness.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	1. Death was a joke

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this story, like any story set in a time of pandemic, deals with themes of illness and death. (Not death of John or Sherlock, however.)  
> Please be aware of your limits for depressing news and find other things to read to be optimistic. 
> 
> The title is, of course, homage to the great novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, a classic of magical realism and lovesickness.

Doctor John Watson knew it was coming. 

Well, he didn't know this specific thing was coming, but he's a doctor, and he knew that sooner or later a pandemic would come to London. 

Ebola, no. Measles, no. 

The most-probable dangerous epidemic would be a virus exactly like SARS-CoV-2 turned out to be: novel, contagious, and more importantly -- from an epidemiology standpoint -- infecting a large percentage of people while not making them too sick to work, travel, and go spread the infection. 

But John wasn't ready, any more than anyone else in the NHS was. 

First, there were rumours out of China, not completely suppressed by the CCP. 

Then, there were the numbers of cases and the exponential rise in reported deaths. 

Then, there was the astonishing video of an emergency hospital being constructed in one week. Two hospitals. 

Someone in the Chinese government was taking this very seriously. 

No-one in the UK government, however.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from the heartbreaking song by Jason Isbell:
> 
> "If we were vampires and death was a joke  
> We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke  
> And laugh at all the lovers and their plans ... "


	2. Getting unstuck from the past

After John married an assassin, after Sherlock flatlined from her gunshot, after John coaxed Sherlock back to health in the months up till Christmas, after Sherlock's aborted suicide mission to Eastern Europe, their lives could not continue as before. Sherlock still had work, the Work, but he could no longer refuse to feed his transport, no longer stay awake for days on end, no longer scramble across rooftops and down alleys with his former grace and energy. And John still had what? What was in it for John if Sherlock could no longer provide the adventure, the hunt, the glamour, the thrill? 

Sherlock could not ask out loud, and if he had, John could not have given a sensible answer. What he felt for Sherlock wasn't sensible: it was love, inexpressible love, romantic and sexual. Neither could speak about it, and neither could admit that they had been only seconds from confessions on the tarmac which would have changed everything even more than injuries and age did. 

John chose to get his required fix of adrenalin by returning to medicine as an A&E doctor. He had to work hard to get re-certified; he had neglected his CME for so long that he had been in danger of losing his license altogether. Soberly, Sherlock helped him with his studies and helped make arrangements for the seminars John needed to attend. 

Sherlock admitted, only to himself, that he couldn't risk losing John again. Perhaps the best way to keep John was to give him the chance to be satisfied with a new life-saving career in the city. If John had a vital job at UCH, then he wouldn't be as likely to pine for the quiet life in the suburbs with a normal wife and statistically average children. Therefore, it only made sense for Sherlock to do everything he could to support John's advancement. Even to the point of asking Mycroft for a favor on John's behalf? No. A moment's reflection showed that Mycroft couldn't assist with that. John would have to succeed for himself, and he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is being posted as I type it, live, no beta reader and damn little editing. Please, please, let me know if you spot any typos, grammar mistakes, anything I can fix!


	3. Brexit will not save you

On January 31, 2020, the first two cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in England. The UK government responded with public health advisories, and with new surveillance at airports of persons suspected to have been infected (from Wuhan) prior to traveling to the UK. 

Nonetheless, the government did not test all returning travelers, did not succeed in tracing and isolating all the contacts of persons known to have been infected, and seemed determined to skip the very first step in the Chief Medical Adviser's strategy: contain, delay, research and mitigate. 

Less than a month later, there was a confirmed case of community transmission. 

In the meantime, new active cases in Wuhan had begun to fall, a sign that community lock-down would indeed stop the virus spread. But the UK government and its people, in spite of proposing to draft medical students to work in hospitals, and in spite of panicking about empty store shelves, did nothing practical towards containment or delay of infection. 

The pubs and clubs were jammed. If all else fails, have a pint! Snog a girl, or a boy, your choice! Have another pint! 

John Watson did not panic. What he did is ask Mrs Hudson if she had all the cleaning supplies she needed. He used his Captain Watson voice to insist that Sherlock practice thorough hand-washing. Well, that was long overdue practice, anyway. He wondered idly about getting the Polish plumber to to install a hand-washing station just inside the front door. No, that was being a bit too paranoid, and Mrs Hudson would never stand for it. John asked Sherlock if they should encourage Mrs Hudson to take a long vacation in the countryside. Mrs Hudson, leave Baker Street? England would fall! 

Doctor John Watson gritted his teeth, worked his scheduled shifts at A&E three days a week, talked with his direct supervisor about their stock of protective equipment -- about which he could do nothing -- and one afternoon off, updated his will and his Lasting Power of Attorney. John felt a surge of love and regret when he realized that Sherlock's the only person he trusted to make decisions for him. Did Sherlock already know that he was John's person, his everything? How had Sherlock not deduced it years ago? He must have done, and he must have kept quiet about it because he didn't want to have that conversation, with John, about sentiment ... But now they needed to acknowledge it openly. Life might not go on as normal.


	4. But one day I'll be gone

Mrs Hudson was finally showing her age. Good luck, good genes, and years of work as a dancer had given her bones and muscles to remain fit and active into later years. But heavens, she was over eighty now, and an old gal should slow down a little after eight decades. And her hip was a misery nowadays, but she didn't want to bother John for medical advice or a stronger prescription for the pain. She stopped climbing the seventeen stairs. 

She wasn't their housekeeper any more. In fact, Mrs Hudson had a girl come in once a week to do the heavy housework in her own flat. Sherlock and John had discussed getting help three years ago and decided to pay for her as a Christmas present. 

John actually liked doing the cleaning in his and Sherlock's areas; the type of man who wanted to be both a soldier and a doctor thrives on knowing that things are where they belong, are clean, and ready to use. Sherlock slowly came around to doing his share of keeping the kitchen clean enough to cook in. Perhaps it was those two years of being gone, chasing and being chased, hiding in squalor, which made him appreciate their calm tidy rooms more than before. Some time in the five years, no, six years since, they had reached a mutual understanding and really did not need to discuss it nor need Mrs Hudson to supervise. 

Not surprisingly, it turned out Sherlock could cook. As he scoffed, cooking is simple chemistry. Perhaps surprisingly, he turned out to be an apt pupil with Mrs Hudson for baking when she no longer felt up to it. At least once a week, and more often when he wasn't on assignment for Mycroft, Sherlock came downstairs to look through Martha's recipe box to choose the day's baking project. Each success was marked by him painstakingly copying the recipe onto a fresh card in his most careful handwriting. Any failures went home with Ella, the cleaning girl; she had younger brothers who would eat anything. 

While they waited for orange scones or sugar biscuits to come out of the oven, Martha Hudson retold silly stories from her girlhood and her career. Champagne, sequined dance gowns, not-quite stardom but a satisfying level of success, then the whirlwind romance. Well, Sherlock knew how that had ended ... 

Sherlock carefully dusted her seven favorite teapots on the high shelf so Ella didn't have to get up on the step-stool. They sorted through mismatched old china -- it was amazing how much glassware can remain unbroken if you're a calm old lady-- some cups and plates went upstairs to replace those Sherlock had destroyed the last time he had a tantrum. Four, no five years ago. 

He helped Martha choose which unread books to keep and which to give away. Together, they paged through a scrapbook of photos and theatre tickets. Sherlock patted her hand and asked if he could have just one photo, that one of Martha laughing under the streetlights, carefree. There were whole boxes of unsorted old photos which needed to be binned without even being looked at. There were other sentimental bits and bobs to sort through, too, and to dispose of. Mrs Hudson didn't want her trinkets to be a burden on someone else to clean up if she died. But they took it a little at a time. There was still plenty of time left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is again from Jason Isbell:
> 
> "It's knowing that this can't go on forever  
> Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone  
> Maybe we'll get forty years together  
> But one day I'll be gone  
> Or one day you'll be gone"


End file.
